Social Relations as Contexts for Learning in School

1977 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. McDermott

Questions concerning what works in classrooms have been asked many times. The answers so far have not resulted in any substantial educational changes, and our school systems continue to be in considerable disarray. In this article, R. P. Mc-Dermott emphasizes the importance of understanding the way relations between teachers and children affect the development of learning environments and examines how classroom interaction may promote or retard learning. He describes how teaching styles depend on cultural contexts and examines successful and unsuccessful classrooms with examples from a variety of school systems, including Amish and inner-city American. McDermott suggests that the ethnographic study of classrooms will allow us to look carefully at learning in terms of how teachers and students "make sense" of each other and hold each other accountable, given the resources and limits of their community.

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 96
Author(s):  
Murni Mahmud

This paper depicts the students’ perception on the ways their teachers teach them. There were 80 respondents involved in this research consisting 40 students from undergraduate and 40 students from graduate program. The respondents are the English students of the Graduate and undergraduate Program of the State University of Makassar. An open ended questionnaire was distributed to them to reveal their perception towards their teachers’ teaching styles. The findings of this research revealed expectations from students towards their teachers in terms of the use of materials and methods in the class, the classroom interaction and management by the teachers, and the teachers’ personal identities. Some other aspects such as gender relation and politeness were taken into consideration on the students’ preferences. Key words: English Language Teaching, English Teachers, English Students, Teaching Methods, Teaching materials, gender, politeness


2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Coretta Phillips

This article explores recent concerns about the emergence of gangs in prisons in England and Wales. Using narrative interviews with male prisoners as part of an ethnographic study of ethnicity and social relations, the social meaning of ‘the gang’ inside prison is interrogated. A formally organized gang presence was categorically denied by prisoners. However, the term ‘gang’ was sometimes elided with loose collectives of prisoners who find mutual support in prison based on a neighbourhood territorial identification. Gangs were also discussed as racialized groups, most often symbolized in the motif of the ‘Muslim gang’. This racializing discourse hinted at an envy of prisoner solidarity and cohesion which upsets the idea of a universal prisoner identity. The broader conceptual, empirical and political implications of these findings are considered.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 233339361879295
Author(s):  
Oona St-Amant ◽  
Catherine Ward-Griffin ◽  
Helene Berman ◽  
Arja Vainio-Mattila

As international volunteer health work increases globally, research pertaining to the social organizations that coordinate the volunteer experience in the Global South has severely lagged. The purpose of this ethnographic study was to critically examine the social organizations within Canadian NGOs in the provision of health work in Tanzania. Multiple, concurrent data collection methods, including text analysis, participant observation and in-depth interviews were utilized. Data collection occurred in Tanzania and Canada. Neoliberalism and neocolonialism were pervasive in international volunteer health work. In this study, the social relations—“volunteer as client,” “experience as commodity,” and “free market evaluation”—coordinated the volunteer experience, whereby the volunteers became “the client” over the local community and resulting in an asymmetrical relationship. These findings illuminate the need to generate additional awareness and response related to social inequities embedded in international volunteer health work.


Author(s):  
Mariagrazia Francesca Marcarini

AbstractThis project investigates how to overcome traditional learning environment’s rigidity; those established practices that may hinder full use of what we might call new learning environments. It addresses how teachers adapt their teaching to changing learning environments, what impact new educational spaces have on teachers and students, how to organise students with different criteria, and how learning environments can be redesigned in old schools with limited investments. The research studies four schools: in Denmark, the Hellerup Folkeskole in Gentofte and the Ørestad Gymnasium in Copenhagen; in Italy, the Enrico Fermi High School in Mantua and IC3 Piersanti Mattarella secondary first grade in Modena. New learning environments are intended to enhance teacher collaboration and stimulate the exchange of new teaching methods, enabling learning personalisation. This is often facilitated by team teaching, which in this chapter is seen as a “bridge-culture” concept, offering a wider vision including structural and organisational details. The chapter discusses how this strategy lead to students improved learning skills, them taking on greater personal responsibility and displaying aptitude to study in different ways. In this sample of “architecture feeds pedagogy” schools, some key concepts are explored that might guide future learning environments design: readability, “semantic-topical”, flexibility, invisible pedagogy and affordances.


KWALON ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joost Beuving

Business event as fieldwork site? A major methodological problem in the ethnographic study of international business elites is to make visible the social relations they draw and depend on. Business elites constitute a highly mobile social category and they mediate a growing portion of everyday social interaction via online, digital means. They are elusive, therefore, and that compromises the possibility of making direct observations of their social practices, which erodes the scope to ethnographically study this important group in the world economy. The essay shows how fieldwork on business events, such as conferences, expositions, and trade fairs, can help to overcome this problem. Such events constitute focal points and moments of crystallization in globally operating social networks, making visible a part of the international business ‘theatre’ that normally lags hidden. By presenting excerpts from recent fieldwork carried out in Belgium, Greece and the Netherlands, I give an impression of observables in this theatre, aiming especially at fostering an awareness of social behavior ‘backstage’ with a view to formulating further questions. The essay concludes with a plea to include business events as ‘field schools’ in study programs looking at international business elites, such as business schools and/or business economics.


Author(s):  
Ana González-Marcos ◽  
Joaquín Ordieres-Meré ◽  
Fernando Alba-Elías

Projects have become a key strategic working form. It is agreed that project performance must achieve its objective and be aligned with criteria that the project stakeholders establish. The usual metrics that are considered are cost, schedule, and quality. Configuration for the management of projects is a matter of decision that influences the project's evolution. There also are factors like virtual teamwork and team building processes that are relevant to that evolution. Effectiveness in managing projects depends on these factors and is investigated in this work by means of educational data mining as they can help to build more effective learning and operating procedures. The conclusions from this study can help higher education course designers as well as teachers and students by making apparent the influence of smarter strategies in the learning process. In fact, the same benefits will help practitioners too, as they can improve their continuous learning procedures and adjust their project management policies and strategies.


Author(s):  
Angelina Popyeni Amushigamo

Prior to Namibia's independence in 1990, the role of the teacher in an educational environment has been defined as the transmission of information to students, and the teacher was regarded as the all-knowing person in the classroom, who slavishly followed the textbook in transmitting the subject matter to the students. In some cases, the teacher did not understand the subject matter that he/she transmitted to students. Therefore, there was no explanation of what was being taught. Students had to sit passively and listen to the teacher; learn by memorization (rote learning), and recall the transmitted information. This study explored perceptions of the role of teachers and students in learner-centered classrooms in a primary school in Namibia. Learner-centered teachers create learning environments that promote students' active engagement with learning and develop critical thinking skills.


Author(s):  
Karen L. Rasmussen

Reusable Learning Object technology offers K-12 teachers and students the opportunity to access resources that can be used and reused in classroom teaching and learning environments. A support tool for teachers, QuickScience™, was developed to help teachers and students improve performance in science standards; resources in QuickScience™ are built upon RLO technologies. Six types of RLOs, including five types of instructional resources aligned to Bloom’s taxonomy, are used by teachers to help students improve their performance in science. QuickScience™ offers teachers a model for improving performance, including steps of diagnose, plan, teach, and assess.


2006 ◽  
Vol 120 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-141
Author(s):  
Sara Bragg

Questions of cultural value, aesthetics and evaluative judgments have vexed media education since its inception. Whilst they continue to count heavily both in teachers' conceptions of the work they do, and in students' responses to it, they have become increasingly problematic in contemporary society. The diverse environments of contemporary schools and the capacity of new media technologies to foster different taste communities have contributed to the dispersal of cultural authority and undermined traditional judgments. This article addresses how we might approach cultural value through a case study approach, exploring multiple value judgments deployed by teachers and students in post-16 classroom practice. It shows how current pedagogical thinking about cultural value does not take into account the complexity of classroom life, particularly its social relations and young people's awareness of the valorised identities and ‘supervisory discourses’ that circulate there. It explores specific educational practices that might make it possible for students to enter into debates about value, taste and preference.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document